Kindness
by AutumnsFey
Summary: Children are impressionable. Tsuna was no exception. Her father's abandonment left it's traces on her life, finger prints painting as cruel picture. But Tsuna was far more like her more than her father ... and Sawada Nana had a spin of steel. Fem!Tsuna. CharacterDeath!


_**Some people are naturals at being parents. **__They flourish in their role with ease._

_Some people, on the other hand, shouldn't procreate at all. Just – they shouldn't. Really. Like, Not. Ever. Ever._

_My mother belonged to the first category. She was an incredible woman, beautiful in appearance and character alike. It was a privilege to be raised, cared for and loved by her._

_My father … was the prime example of the second kind. There was little to no doubt in my mind that should I ever look up the definition of what made a dead-beat father in a lexicon, his photo would be next to the description. He was a man who never should have reproduced, and who's only redeeming quality was the fact that he had … well, he had not really chosen her, it was true that he had been extraordinarily lucky enough to have been blessed with my mother as his partner._

_Sadly, he squandered even that, didn't you, Tou-chan?_

_Or not. Sadly, that is._

_Because if you had stayed with us? If you had managed to damage that wonderful woman I call my mother even further?_

_I don't even want to imagine that. It would have been a crime against nature, one you thankfully never got the chance to properly commit. That was the one lesson I will always be grateful to you for._

_Never let the insincere ones make you surrender your very self._

_None – abso-fucking-lutely none – are worth that._

_No one._

_**I don't remember you.**_

_I remember the idea of you._

_When I asked Kaa-chan who you were, where you were … the first time, she cried. The second time, she answered me. I wished I had never asked. And I never bothered her about you again – at least directly. You just weren't worth it._

_Someone like you wasn't worth even the smallest sliver of curiosity._

_In one short lesson, I had learned everything I needed to know. My father was Japanese, but with obvious foreign origins, Italian to be exact. You claimed employment as a construction worker who was contractually obliged to work on jobs all around the world due to the nature of the company you belonged to – jobs that absolutely needed your personal attention, and which took you away from us for months at a time. Kaa-chan could never shake off the darkly looming feeling that you had been lying to her. The two of you married because Kaa-chan was pregnant with me, the mistake of a summer romance, but she loved you and me so so much and wanted us to be a family, a wish which you were only too willing to see come true. At least on the surface. A beautiful dutiful woman, a child, a house with garden and fence – the perfect dream._

_It was a well-crafted illusion on your part._

_For that, I honestly had to applaud you._

_Because after your wedding? You disappeared back to work, leaving her alone, the wife of a man who seemed to be cruelly careless about her loneliness and needs. You weren't there for my birth, or my childhood. She told me that you had visited all-together five times since my birth, always only for a short while, a holiday trip really, up until I was four. And then, you left. You left with no word and came back two years later, with a lawyer and divorce papers that gave Kaa-chan full custody of me and a never ending source of money as long as neither she nor I ever contacted you again. You treated her like a whore, cast aside like trash, paid off for her 'services'._

_She said I saw my father the last time when I was four._

_And that I saw you the last time when I was six, in tears about the cruel words you spewed like poison._

_Sometimes, I imagine that I can remember you, watching your back as you walked away without a backwards glance, but I know that it's merely my imagination, not reality._

_I can't remember your face. I can't remember your voice._

_And I wished I could have forgotten how much your very existence hurt us._

**Being a single parent wasn't easy, but Sawada Nana mastered it with steely bravery. **Even burnt and beaten like she had been by her first marriage to a man who turned out to have been a terrible choice, she never held it against her child.

She took one look at the pieces he had left their life in, at the tears on her distraught daughter's little face and braved herself, steel settling into her spin and straightening it as she made the resolution to face the future head on with the fury of a woman scorned and a mother lion protecting her child from a predator that had no idea who he would engage with should he ever dare to show his damn face around them again.

Who did he Iemitsu think he was?

Who did he think _she _was?

She didn't know anymore, actually doubting that she ever did know him – but damn it all, she was sure of one thing: He believed himself invincible, free of them and better off for it; he had made a mistake, and she would neither beg for him to come back nor would she let him control their life.

'If you dig a grave, better dig two.'

Because every action, had reaction, and his action of cutting them out of his life, was followed by the reaction of them disavowing him of ever again belonging to their life.

She was better than him. Her daughter was better than that man.

And after all was said and done, it would be neither of Tsuna nor Nana who would come out of this for the worst in the long term; the one who would mourn was Iemitsu, and Nana wouldn't show him any mercy. He hadn't given her that courtesy, so she would return the favour. Even if she could come off as naïve and airheaded, he was supposed to know her better … oh well, if stars were wishes, than she would have a firmament full …

They weren't.

And she was done hoping. She was done waiting.

She was just completely done.

No matter how much it hurt now, at least with time they could heal.

She would never let her little baby girl see her cry.

Not because of him.

_**Kaa-chan never knew, but … I heard her.**_

_For years._

_I would go to bed, but not be able to properly sleep. It would take hours for me to fall asleep, and in the morning, the dark rings beneath my eyes would worry Kaa-chan. She took me to doctors, and after endless tests, they said that I had Insomnia and needed to take small naps throughout the day to compensate._

_I remember how one of the doctors asked me if I had problems at home? If something bothered me so much that it kept me from sleep?_

_I said no._

… _I lied._

_How could I have possible said that I couldn't sleep because I heard how my Kaa-chan cried herself to sleep, night for night? That the guilt and helplessness I felt choked me up, tightened my throat until breathing became painful and a stone-like weight settled in my chest?_

_That first night, when I was six, I nearly comforted her … but she sobbed your name. I don't know why, but after that, I couldn't._

_Years later, after she had told me truth, I couldn't stop the hate … the self-hate, because I was your daughter, too, and seeing me each day must have been torturous for her. The ever-present reminder of her pain._

_She never took it out on me. She never blamed me. She was the strongest woman I know, my idol._

_But I knew the truth. You had married her because she had unexpectedly become pregnant. She had tied herself to you because I had happened._

_If I hadn't happened? She would have found a man that wouldn't have broken her heart._

_She said I was her greatest treasure. Her reason to never give up._

_I wanted to believe her. I wanted it so much … but how could I?_

_How could I believe her when she cried herself to sleep at night?_

_**I … don't remember when I started hating myself for being born.**_

_And I don't remember when I stopped it._

_The second instant may have something to do with the fact … that I never did stop completely._

_I don't really know how to._

_**After years, Kaa-chan's tears slowly dried.**_

_You became the shadow that only occasionally creeped up._

_A bitter footnote._

_(Un-)surprisingly, my Insomnia slowly lessened._

**Nana had always tried to protect her little baby girl from the cruelness of the world, but she also knew that at one point, Tsunayuki would be exposed to it and that people expected her to deal with it.**

Her beautiful sweet little child, always so eager to help and be friends with everyone.

She was so glad that this bright lovely smile hadn't burned out.

For a time there, it had been touch and go. Tsuna had become tired and lethargic, unwilling to leave Nana's side and indifferent to everything. The doctors had diagnosed her with Insomnia, and Nana had done her best to help her child, even if it had broken her heart to see how listless her little girl had become and how scarcely she actually reacted to anything.

It was a trying time.

Next to Tsuna's medical problems and her failing grades in school, Nana had to deal with the fallout of her divorce. The settlement had been more than generous, and the monthly stipend they got ensured that neither of them would ever hurt for money, but Nana … didn't want it. She wouldn't let Iemitsu have that much control over them. He had decided to leave them behind and make them a thing of the past – she would be damned if he could decide anything for them now, even if it only concerned monetary issues.

Instead, she got a little apartment for the two of them and sold the house. The money from the sale created a nice little buffer and allowed her to search for a job. Which was quite difficult; for six years, Nana hadn't had to worry about her qualifications or experience, which proved unwise now. It was at times like that when she was tempted to use Iemitsu's money …

… but one look at the sadness and quietness of her daughter, and the fire in her eyes returned.

No.

He wouldn't control them.

Nana eventually got a part-time job as a secretary with the option to work full-time once Tsuna was older and their situation more secure. It was a start, and she took the opportunity as the gift it was.

Independence was calling.

And she opened the door welcomingly.

… the money Iemitsu send was deposited in an account for Tsuna, so that she would be cared for, no matter what.

She didn't trust that man to do right by her daughter should anything happen to her.

He had done more than enough to her sweet girl.

_**Kaa-chan once told me that you leaving us like that hit me hard.**_

_That it hurt me._

_I only remember those years vaguely. My therapist called it depression and repression._

_But I think Kaa-chan was wrong. It wasn't your departure that hurt me – how could you leaving hurt, when you were never there to begin with?_

_I think that it was seeing Kaa-chan so pained and trying to stay strong … that it was your fucking casualness in throwing our family away that did it … if you ever really belonged to that family to begin with._

_Your heart certainly didn't._

**As a young mother, Nana had been afraid of being without her spouse, of holding the sole responsibility for not only her own life but that of her daughter to. **The idea of messing up, of being unable to handle complete independence while someone else was so deeply depending on her was frightening. There had been nights when she had kneeled before her bed and prayed to Kami-sama for guidance and safety. There were still days when she prayed.

For a long time, doubt had stayed with her, and no matter her resolutions, it had never completely dissipated. She had lost count of how often 'what if'-scenarios had stolen her sleep.

In the end, time had taught her how useless that had been.

It wasn't smooth sailing, but Nana was so damn proud of the young woman her daughter had become, from that sweet but depressed little girl who had been hurt so badly to the scarily intelligent and delightful young adult that took what life threw at her and habitually made it into nothing but a stepping stone on the way to her dreams – dreams she would conquer, one way or another.

Nana had absolute faith in her amazing child.

Tsuna had exceeded all their expectations – Iemitsu's, Nana's, her teacher's, her classmate's – she had done her best and turned her life around. Nana didn't knew how, and her relief and gratefulness were far too strong to question this miracle too closely, but somehow Tsuna had managed to get herself out of the depression that had taken hold of her as a young pre-teen, and now, her future looked so bright. Every door people had deemed closed before her baby girl had even known that those possibilities existed, every path that had been barred to her by prejudice and misconceptions, she had opened up again by herself. She had overcome whatever and whoever got into her way, and … and Nana was sure that there was no obstacle her child could not best.

Their life was – it was happy, even with the shadow of the past, the sunlight was a never ending ray of hope and happiness.

They were realising their dreams, they were together as a family, and they finally felt happy with the way life had turned out.

Despite her fears and doubts …

… Nana was pretty sure that she hadn't done too badly by Tsuna.

Honestly … not bad at all.

Tsuna was a delight.

_**If I were more like you, I would say that I was just so awesome, so strong and resilient, that bouncing back from the bump I hit back as a pre-teen was easy… but I'm not like you.**_

_And for that, I couldn't be more grateful._

_What I actually could say, and what I truly do mean, is that at one point I recognized the simple fact that you were at fault for the way our life had fallen apart, and that single epiphany diminished the listlessness I suffered greatly. One could say I played the blame game, and that I took the path of least resistance by putting all the blame on your shoulders – after all, you couldn't argue your case, as far away and silent as you have always been. Maybe those voices were right, maybe not. All I know is that once I really thought about what I could have done to keep the family together, about what Kaa-chan had told me had happened between you two, remembering how you reacted – the way you cruelly abandoned us like we were useless burdens … we may be blood, but we are nothing alike and hopefully we never will be._

_There was a moment, when I was nearly thirteen, when I realised … I was the child. You were the parent._

_Nothing I could have done would have restrained you from tearing our family apart, because we never even factored into your decisions, only your own desires and needs did, and what hurt me wasn't your actual departure, it was Kaa-chan's pain because of it._

_I don't even know if you ever loved me, if I was anything but an inconvenience to you … but I think, later on, when it counted, no. You didn't love me._

_And it wasn't because I did, or didn't do anything._

_Maybe it wasn't even your fault – because the way mom tells it that was just your nature._

_Your love wasn't free, it wasn't something you gave, it was something that had to be earned, but I was a child, and as a child – I had nothing to give._

_Love. Happiness. Adoration. Warmth. Family._

_They were worthless to you – coming from me._

_I was worthless._

_And once I realised this? Once I understood why? That, okay, my birth was a mistake, but that I did not explicitly did something to tear us apart – that I simply wasn't worth enough for you to love me? That Kaa-chan wasn't enough? That assigning fault would only stop Kaa-chan and me from healing and moving on? From rebuilding our life and looking to the future – this wonderful bright experience only waiting to happen if we allowed it to? I could continue on._

_Unlike you, I won't throw what I have away for a new beginning – I'm the type of girl, father, who picks the shattered pieces of her world right up of the dirty ground and builds them back up into something stronger, steadier – something lasting._

_I don't expect you to understand._

**But all good things must come to an end.**

Tsuna was sixteen when the diagnosis came: Nana had cancer.

The single mother didn't know what to do. In the beginning, when the symptoms had started to appear, she merely thought that she had the flu. She slept a lot, had a cough that grew more terrible the longer it went on, fevers happening sporadically, her chest hurt. She tried to deny that it was anything serious.

Until she collapsed in the kitchen, blacking out from chest pains.

It was Tsuna who found her, it was Tsuna who called an ambulance, crying as she held Nana; her mother wouldn't wake up.

It was two days later that their entire world changed: Stage three lung cancer.

Inoperable. Untreatable. Highly aggressive.

Terminal.

Never before had Nana hated herself as much as she did then.

After all they had suffered, after all they had endured and emerged victorious from, it would be a sickness that succeeded where everything else had failed. Sickness would orphan her baby girl, and there was nothing Nana could do to stop it, there was no place for denial – and no time. Their time had run.

She would die. She was dying.

Hot tears trailed down her cheeks, as she swallowed the regret and anger that threatened to overwhelm her. The only way she could keep herself from sinking into a deep hole was to concentrate on the one thing that would always matter.

Tsuna.

All she could do for her daughter was to make sure that she was taken care of – and that Iemitsu couldn't hurt her.

She was still a minor.

And Nana wasn't going to allow Tsuna to fall into the claws of her childhood demon.

As long as her heart was still beating, she would fight for her child.

With each failing breathe.

_**In theory, I should know how to handle a parent's loss.**_

_Turns out, in practice, I don't._

_Maybe because it was Kaa-chan?_

_Or maybe because you never were a parent._

_I'm old enough to rationalize better now … and still …_

_Still I'm holding onto Kaa-chan hand, afraid to lose the most amazing woman in the world. The one person I love unconditionally._

_Older? Yes. Ready? Never._

… _never ..._

_**Can you ever be ready?**_

**Tsuna had tried to hide her tears. **Again.

Nana could still see it. Like always. She could hear the water running as her baby girl tried to hide the tear tracks and puffy eyes.

Her own eyes closed as a wave of grief rushed over her.

She wasn't ready to go yet … but it wasn't her choice any longer. Just as leaving her daughter alone in this unpredictable world wasn't.

She swallowed her angry screams at the unfairness of it all and opened her eyes as she heard Tsuna approaching the kitchen. She lifted up the corners of her mouth to give at least the illusion of normalcy.

Neither of them said anything about the others forced smile.

_**It's sad, you know.**_

_At the moment, I'm just so damn … numb._

_It feels as if my life slowly turns to sand, as if everything slips through my fingers, through the cracks that had suddenly appeared in our life. For years, you have been my greatest demon, you have been the one haunting me. I always thought that if there was one thing that could destroy us, it would be connected to you. But in the end, it was something so much more insidious and unexpected._

_Cancer._

… _and I still don't know what I prefer. Because, as terrible as it may sound, in a way, you are just as much of a cancer to us as the disease itself is. But maybe … maybe I would have preferred you, because you – you we could have both survived, damaged even more, broken, but at least able to be fixed, still here._

_This – this is terminal. It's final._

_And I hate it. I hate that I'm helpless, that I can't sooth the pain of the one person who means the world to mean. These days, it's easier to simply be … numb._

_Being numb means I don't worry Kaa-chan as much. It means I can fake a smile for her sake, to laugh despite the tears, because it's all on the outside – if you are too numb to feel anything, it's easier to fake something._

_And I'm going to hold onto this feeling of numbness._

_I'm not going to let Kaa-chan see my fear._

_I'm not going to let her see my despair._

_She is the mother. I'm the child._

_But just this once, I'm going to protect her in the only way I can._

_I will give her the only thing I can._

_Peace in the knowledge that I'm going to be okay._

_'Fake it till you make it.'_

**Sawada Nana was a strong woman.**

She could be sweet and naïve when she allowed herself to feel safe, but when the situation called for it, she was pragmatic and enduring. And when it concerned her baby girl?

Call her fucking stubborn and overprotective, call her uncompromising and a bitch, and she would agree with a cold glint in her eyes and an even colder smile on her lips.

Nana was a mother with steal in her spine, and a lioness protecting her cubs had nothing on her ferociousness and the love she held for her child.

Time for the claws to come out.

_**I don't want you.**_

_I'm not going to you._

_I would rather life on the streets than to ever again depend on you._

_There is no way in hell that I will allow you into my life, not when you walked out on us. To give you the illusion that you have been forgiven? That I forgive you for hurting me – but, more importantly, for hurting Kaa-chan?_

_Hell will freeze over before that happens._

**'At least her baby would be taken care of.'**

That was the only thought that still brought Nana a small measure of peace, as she laid in the hospital bed, her now seventeen year old child holding her needle-riddled hand, like Tsuna had done every day since Nana had been hospitalised, hooked up to so many monitors it looked as if they were the only things keeping her alive.

Tsuna had spent every day there, coming in in the morning, leaving for school, and returning directly after school and then staying late into the evening, until she was taken home by the Hibari's. Nana had approached the Hibari Maki, her old school friend, shortly after her diagnosis, and had begged the other woman to take over Tsuna's temporary guardianship until her daughter would come of age. It was only a little more than a year at that time, not even as much now.

But Maki-san's guardianship of Tsuna had been approved by the courts, her baby girl would not be sent to that man.

It had made breathing so much easier.

Nana's hand twitched as she gently squeezed her daughter's hand, smiling lightly at the peacefully sleeping face of her baby girl.

She would be okay.

Her beloved child would be okay.

_**No!**_

_Damn it! No!_

_This is not fair! Not right! Not her!_

_Anyone but her! I wish it had been you! You … you would have deserved it … so much more than she ever could …_

_Why …?_

_I don't understand …_

_I don't understand anything anymore …_

**Tsuna was seventeen when her world shattered: Her mother was dead.**

Gone.

And nothing could bring her back.

Her tears wouldn't stop, dripping into the dry graveyard dirt.

She stayed silent, her sobs choking her, but never enough to escape this nightmare.

It was a cold dark day.

_**Kaa-chan never backed down.**_

_She fought._

_I will do the same._

_**I will not let you win.**_

_~ The End. For now. I have an idea for a sequel – anyone interested? ~_


End file.
